French Literature Reviews - 2026
Y. Slezkine, The Jewish Century
History, Politics and Society
Bibliographic reference: Yuri Slezkine, The Jewish Century, translated by Marc Saint-Upéry, Paris: La Découverte, 2018.
504 pages
ISBN: 9782707199546
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“The Modern Age is the Jewish Age, and the twentieth century is the Jewish Century. Modernity means that each of us becomes urban, mobile, literate, and professionally flexible. […] In other words, modernity is the fact that we have all become Jews.”
In the twentieth century, capitalism “opens careers to talent,” while nationalism transforms peoples into “chosen peoples.” Jews became the moderns par excellence. Indeed, their great “Promised Lands” in the twentieth century were both capitalist, liberal America and Israel, “the most eccentric of nationalisms.” Yet it is often forgotten that Soviet Russia was the great reservoir of utopianism and social mobility for the Jews.
Drawing on demography and sociology as well as literature, the author demonstrates that Jews played a thoroughly central role in the building of the USSR before the Stalinist machine turned against them.
A meditation on the destiny of the Jewish people, for whom the twentieth century was at once an apotheosis and a tragedy, this book offers an original and profound reflection on modernity, nationalism, socialism, and liberalism.
Yuri Slezkine is Professor of History and Director of the Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small Peoples of the North (Cornell University Press, 1996) and co-editor of In the Shadow of Revolution: Life Stories of Russian Women from 1917 to the Second World War (Princeton University Press, 2000).
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Table of Contents
Foreword
Introduction
1. Mercury's Sandals: Jews and Other Nomads
2. Swann's Nose: Jews and Other Moderns
3. Babel's First Love: Jews and the Russian Revolution
4. Hodl's Choice: Jews and Their Three Promised Lands
Notes
Acknowledgements
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The study of Jewish history in the twentieth century often involves navigating the complex tensions between traditional identity and the rapid societal shifts of the modern era. This work situates the Jewish trajectory within a global context of urbanization and social mobility, exploring how these processes shaped individual lives and national ideologies. Readers interested in the intersection of sociology, demography, and historical narrative may find this analysis of the Jewish experience within the Soviet Union and beyond relevant.
The text examines the modern age as a period defined by literacy, professional flexibility, and urban living. It discusses the role of Jews in the development of the USSR and the subsequent shift in their status. This reflection on the twentieth century as both an apotheosis and a tragedy for the Jewish people addresses the dynamics of identity within the frameworks of capitalist and socialist societies.
More information available on the publisher's website